This is a guide to not selling your horse online, including excerpts from real horse ads! Snippets of images and text were taken from sale horse sites, to be used for parody.Photography

Take photos of your horse when he is at leisure in the pasture. If he is dirty and shaggy, that just goes to show us how natural your ownership skills are.

Why would you go to the effort to brush or bathe your horse to make him artificially clean when you could be doing better things like breeding more horses or dogs?Take pictures when he is not standing even, so potential buyers think he has a special number of legs-- maybe 3, or if you can get a post or object in the background, maybe 5 or more! Missing or extra legs helps catch the eye of viewers.

* Accentuate his head. Make sure he is standing with his head facing you so that his head appears three times larger than his body. Alternate this with photos that show us just the horse's butt; we all know this type of photo is flattering for horses and people.

* Never provide a clear conformation shot that shows what the horse actually looks like.

Temperament

* It is absolutely necessary to illustrate that your 3-yo grade stud horse is safe by including photos of a small, unhelmeted child clinging to its unsaddled back while loose in the pasture. Extra points if there are loose horses and other potential hazards in the background. Only someone unconfident of their horse's perfect disposition would cringe at the thought of this.

* You may also want to include photos of your horse in front of crappy fencing, preferably barbed wire and falling down. Random crap in the pasture is a plus too. This shows that your horse is smart enough to never get injured on dangerous objects. No one wants a horse stupid enough to get sliced up on barbed wire!

Bloodlines

* Tell potential buyers about your horse's bloodlines: "Her sire is a red/white paint stallion. Her dam is a black grade." If this person hadn't mentioned it, we might have thought her dam was a chestnut grade and her sire was a palomino! Thank God they made it so clear!

* If your horse resembles a rhinoceros, goat, or ostrich more than an equine, make sure you list off the horse's breeding so buyers will know for sure it really is a horse: "Has Impressive, Obvious Conclusion, Zippo Pine Bar, Conclusive lines!"

Registration

* When you say, "Can be registered, I just never did it", this shows us that you're just so busy responsibly attending to your horses that you couldn't possibly have take ten minutes to do the paperwork!

* Just look online; Registered horses are everywhere! Why breed a "normal" quarter horse when you can breed a cross to a cross and create something really x-ing special? "Mother was a POA/Morgan and sire was a Canadian Horse."

* For example, this is an ad for an unregistered QH/Arab cross. It was totally an excellent idea to breed her to a Morgan! That's a total of two horses and three breeds in one sale, all for the low price of $750! That's about .60 a pound!

"She has not been riden in about two years... She always produces nice foals that are easy to handle. She is available after her current foal is weanded or she can be purchaed now as a 2-in-1 for a reduced cost $750. 2008 foal is a sorrel colt, half-morgan. She can also be bre back to a palamino Morgan stallion or a cremello overo APHA if you would like. "

* Measure your horse someplace other than the withers (and don't provide the wither measurement): "She is already 15-2 at the hip"

Don't Geld Before Selling

* Obviously, if your little stud is a well-behaved at two days old, he will be for the rest of his life so there is no need to geld! If he doesn't try to get to mares by this age, he will never need special fencing or care. Seller of a $350 unregistered yearling: $100 additional fee if you want him gelded, but hes so well mannered you probly dont want to!

* Make sure you tell us that your colt or stallion is so sweet that he's able to be kept in a pen with mares and never breeds them! Nothing sounds more normal and nonfictional than a mature stallion with no sex drive, and nothing says trusting and confident like a stallion owner who lets his stud run with mares they don't want bred because they know he'd never do something like that.

* Stallions are all dangerous, flesh-eating hunks of raging hormones that attack and kill anything that comes in sight, so if your colt allows you to lead it without a stud chain and whip, he's got to be one in a million and kept as a stud because his "calm tempered" genetics need to be passed on to future generations!

Be Very Selective - Or Not At All:

* Actual ad excerpts:

"Free to a Parelli Home"

"She'll go to the first person to come see her."Nothing says responsible horse owner like selling to the first person to express interest, whether it be to buy for riding or meat.

* These two just speak for themselves:

"Will Trade for Cattle""May be willing to trade colt for a nice Tennessee Walker saddle."

Don't Feed Your Horse Enough

* Horses that have protruding bones not only show us that you are financially conscientious (what real horse person would spend excess money on feed?) but we can also evaluate the horse's internal as well as external conformation.

Sell Your Horse Because It's Useless

* Them thar bleedin' heart horse lovers is a bunch of sissys. Real horse people beat their horses when they act up and sell'm when they ain't no good no more. Show us you're a real horse person by getting rid of the animals that no longer bring you a profit. Because horses are just a part of business, not much different than selling used vehicles or buying new clothes when they are no longer in style. It's not like they should be retired or cared for in their old age for all they've done for you during their life.

20 YO chestnut mare:"She had been and is a great mare... she has a stud colt by her side and is breed back to <stud name removed> for an 09 foal. She is a sound breeder, color producer. I've had her sice she was 4 and she no longer fits my program."

Your Horse's Potential

* Tell us everything your horse ever could be potentially good at doing in the future. Does your horse have four legs and a head? Then he might be the next triple crown winner! Or perhaps he'll be a champion at jumping, dressage, barrels, or breeding!

Your pony could even be a pony, as one person wrote: "She will make a great pony prospect." We would have never figured that out on our own.

"He is really great at everything he does. He is a fast learner with tons of potiential. His bloodlines are all talented riding horses."

* If your horse has working or semi-functional genitalia make sure you also list them as having "breeding potential"! Has your 2 year old unregistered quarterloosarabian with three working legs bred with the donkey next door when he broke down the barbed wire fence resulting in an offspring that survived birth? Be sure to list him as a "proven breeder"!

Grammar

Nothing is more fun for a potential buyer than trying to decipher cryptic horse sale ads. The worse your spelling and grammar, the more potential buyers will remember it -- what a smart marketing strategy!

These are some great examples from actual ads posted online:

"I ahve 3 poines Paint Mare pony is 7 year old she is in foal. Broke to ride. She is 39 inches Paint Stud pony 5 years old. broke to ride.38 inches Pony colt he is 36 inches. Asking 350 each or 1000 for all."

"finnish in your direction." Does the horse speak Finnish?

"he is a 5 yr. old that needs some one. owner just dont need him and wants to have a good home.he is a good boy but aint been rode in while and now has only 30 days back in the saddle. all paper work . will load and do what you want."

She would best suit an eprienced rider, only because she has alot of energy that can be unvercing.

Need some more tips or inspiration on how not to sell your horse? It's easy; Go online and search for "Horses For Sale". Great terrible examples can be found in many ads, but the best tend to come from horses that are unregistered or priced at less than $1,000. Spend a little time reading sale ads and you'll come up with some great tips!